Schooled in Magic

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  Back at the classroom, they munched their way through the makeshift sandwiches while waiting for the next tutor. Emily couldn’t understand why they weren’t just told to come back at a specific time, when the tutors would be ready for them, but perhaps that was part of the exam. They couldn’t count on knowing exactly when they would have to use their magic in the real world, either.

  It took nearly twenty minutes before a woman who looked like a cross between Indian and Chinese, complete with slanted eyes and dark skin, appeared and nodded to Emily. It was time to begin the second part of the exam.

  Someone had taken the parchments and the desk from the exam chamber, Emily noted as soon as they returned to the room. Instead, there were three chairs, one holding an oversized doll in a roughly humanoid form. The other two were empty. Emily took one of them at the tutor’s nod and waited, bracing herself as best she could. There had been very little detail on what to expect in the second part of the exam. Apparently, the exam changed every time.

  “This is the practical part of Basic Charms,” the tutor said. “I am Mistress Sun.”

  She tapped the doll with one long finger. “This is Nod. He has volunteered to assist us in testing your grasp of Basic Charms.”

  Emily blinked in surprise. Was Nod intelligent, or was it a joke? There was no way to tell.

  “You should have no problem completing all of the tests,” Mistress Sun informed her. “In the event of you feeling unable to proceed, inform me at once and we will move on to the next test. However, failing to complete at least six tests will mean certain failure; depending on your score in the theory exam, you may fail even if you complete seven or eight. There is no overall time limit on these tests, but certain of them must be completed very quickly once you begin. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” Emily said.

  “Good,” Mistress Sun said. She reached into her pocket and produced a small box, little larger than Emily’s hand. “Open that box.”

  Emily reached for the box, then caught herself. There was no trace of emotion on the tutor’s face as Emily paused and ran through the detection spell before deciding the box surface was actually harmless. Taking the box, she examined it carefully and discovered a single, tiny charm worked into the latch. The standard dispelling spell worked fine, it seemed, but some basic caution made her run the detection spell again before opening the lid. This time, she detected a second hex that needed a more complex spell to remove it. Finally, she opened the box and removed a single pearl.

  “This is the second test,” Mistress Sun said. “That pearl is actually hexed to twist a person’s magic when they swallow it. Your objective is to swallow the pearl and then neutralize it before it can have a significant effect on you.”

  Emily hesitated. She couldn’t believe the effects would be that serious, but it was quite possible that if she tried and failed to defeat it, she wouldn’t be able to complete the rest of the exam. And yet if she refused to try, who knew what would happen then?

  “I’d like to put this aside for the moment,” she said. “Can I do it at the end?”

  Mistress Sun showed no sign of approval or disapproval. “As you wish,” she said, as she stood up. “Put it on the table.”

  She stood behind Nod and smiled thinly. “Nod has been cursed by a powerful witch. You will notice that a single, very complex curse has been wrapped around his soul. It does not merely push him into compliance with her demands, but works to reshape his mind until he is what she wishes him to be. The curse punishes unwanted thoughts and feelings, slowly wearing him down to nothing. He will become a puppet unless you save him.”

  “Brainwashing,” Emily muttered. It certainly sounded like the concept she’d heard of back home. Punish someone for thinking a certain thought often enough and they’d stop thinking of it, sooner or later. “You want me to remove the curse?”

  “It is a task often performed by independent sorcerers,” Mistress Sun agreed. “The witch is either unaware of the long-term effects of such curses, or she simply doesn’t care. Poor Nod will end up with his brain mashed to a pulp unless you save him.”

  Emily swallowed. “I understand,” she said. They’d been taught something about removing charms and hexes, but a full-fledged curse? “How long do I have?”

  Mistress Sun smiled. “You’ll see.” She waved a languid hand at Nod. “Off you go, girl. Good luck.”

  Emily nodded and cast the analysis spell on Nod. The curse appeared in front of her, a glittering mass of deadly spell components, each one tuned to a separate thought. It was so deeply embedded in his mind that she honestly couldn’t see how it could be removed without tearing his mind apart. Half of the curse seemed capable of scanning his thoughts and recognizing what he was thinking; the other half seemed designed to cause pain by manipulating parts of his brain. Merely looking at it made Emily feel dirty, and soiled.

  Every time she thought she’d found a place to begin, she realized that there was another part in front of it. It was a tangled mass of spells far more complex than anything else she’d ever seen.

  But independent sorcerers deal with this all the time, she told herself. There has to be a solution.

  Carefully, she placed her magic in contact with the curse and plunged her mind into its tangled web. Deadly spell components, primed to strike at anyone foolish enough to attempt to remove the spell, came to life, blasting streams of pain towards her. Emily gritted her teeth and ignored them, finally understanding why the spell was so difficult to remove ...

  ...And then she grasped its only weakness. The witch had tangled the spell together like bad knitting, but half of the curse simply wasn’t important. All that really mattered was removing the parts that would cause Nod pain or kill him if someone tried to remove the curse.

  Working at a frantic speed Emily hadn’t known she could muster, she cancelled the torturing parts of the spell before withdrawing from the remains of the curse. The mind-reading sections could be removed at leisure. A final flicker of deadly energy almost killed Nod, before she deflected it away and absorbed it within her own protections.

  And then she burst out of the curse, suddenly aware of just how badly she was sweating.

  Mistress Sun let her drink some water and nibble chocolate before continuing. Nothing seemed to faze her. Emily wondered, suddenly, if Advanced Charms students had to remove curses all the time. Or if they were more prone to playing jokes than the younger students.

  “The fifth part of the test is as follows,” Mistress Sun said. “You will carry out the following instructions ...”

  The practical exam lasted for nearly four hours. By the end of the day, Emily was tired and just wanted to go to her bedroom and collapse into bed. She’d completed nine of the assigned tests, but failed the last one through exhaustion, something that she suspected would be counted against her. And, no matter how well she did, she wouldn’t pass unless Alassa passed as well. She would almost rather have visited the Warden again.

  “You are excused for the rest of the day,” Mistress Sun informed her. “Drink sugar water, eat a proper meal and get some sleep. You will be told how well you performed once the parchments are marked.”

  Emily nodded and headed to the kitchens. She could get some food and drink, then go to her bedroom. All she wanted to do was sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  TWO DAYS PASSED BEFORE EMILY WAS summoned to face Professor Lombardi, two days that she spent fretting about failure and wondering what–if anything–she should have done differently. The promise of a Basic Alchemy exam coming up soon–and tests for Martial Magic–helped keep her awake at night, despite using sleeping spells in the hopes they would make her sleep. Talking to Alassa didn’t help. When they compared notes, it was clear they had been given different exams. There was no way to tell if everyone had been given different questions or if Emily had been given a harder test than the others. Being called to the Charms classroom was almost a relief.

  Professor Lombardi nodd
ed politely to her as she entered the room and closed the door behind her. “Take a seat,” he said kindly. “We’re just waiting for Mistress Irene.”

  Emily blinked in surprise. She’d asked Aloha what had happened when she’d passed Basic Charms and Aloha had told her that she’d only faced Professor Lombardi.

  Uncertain of what was going on, she took a seat and waited, trying to keep her heartbeat under control. Mistress Irene arrived two minutes later, carrying a parchment scroll and a strange, dagger-like device that she passed to Lombardi before taking a seat.

  “You may have realized that you were given a harder practical test than the other students,” Professor Lombardi said without preamble. “Your progress has been monitored and it has become clear that you have a definite talent for charms. You passed the practical test with flying colors.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said. “But why ...?”

  “All students need to be poked and prodded to force them to develop their talents,” Mistress Irene said seriously. “We pushed you harder in Charms because it was clear that your talents lay in that direction. A normal first-year student would not be able to dismantle the curse surrounding Nod. It requires genuine talent to handle such a curse without killing either the victim or yourself.”

  Emily shivered, remembering the nightmares she’d had afterwards. She’d thought that practical jokes, even the Idiot Ball, were bad enough, but curses like that were terrifying. It was easy to see why the victim couldn’t free himself, no matter how powerful he was. The curse just twisted and tore at his mind. Mistress Sun had pointed out that independent magicians often found themselves dismantling unpleasant curses. Emily had wondered if it was a future career for her. And then she’d wondered if she should be trying to avoid it.

  “You did make some mistakes, but you passed the exam,” Lombardi continued. He took the parchment from Mistress Irene and opened it, holding it out to Emily. “Congratulations.”

  Emily took the parchment and stared down at it numbly. It certified that she had passed Basic Charms and a Level Three Practical Exam. There was a glowing magic seal on the sheet of parchment that would be impossible to fake, no matter what anyone did. She touched it lightly with her finger and felt a shock as it shouted the identity of the examiner into her mind.

  “Thank you,” she said after a long pause. She hesitated again, then asked the question that had been haunting her nightmares since the exam. “Was Nod ... was Nod a real human under a curse?”

  Lombardi looked at her in some surprise. “Of course not,” he said finally. “He’s nothing more than a doll, gifted with an impression of humanity that allows him to carry a curse designed to latch onto a person’s mind. If you had failed, the curses wouldn’t have done any real damage to him.”

  But they would have done damage to me, Emily thought. There were too many horrific examples of what could go wrong while curse-breaking in her books. A single mistake could have destroyed her mind, her magic, or–worst of all–transferred the curse to her. In hindsight, she couldn’t believe that she’d tamely accepted the practical exam as Basic Charms. She should have known it wasn’t intended to be so brutal.

  “Your success leaves us with the question of what to do with you next,” Lombardi continued after a long moment. “You will be attending Advanced Charms, of course, as you will need the groundwork to understand what you’re doing, but you will also be tutored privately by Mistress Sun, who will be pushing you as fast as possible. We expect that you will be working at a fourth-year level by the end of second-year.”

  Emily gulped. “You’re moving me up a year now?”

  Mistress Irene chuckled rather dryly. “I’m afraid we couldn’t justify it unless you proved to be a prodigy in every class. Professor Thande informs me that you are still burning your caldron every second lesson.”

  Emily nodded in embarrassment. There were times when she thought that she would never get the hang of Alchemy. It seemed to depend on her mastering a precision too much for anyone to master quickly. Her rational mind kept arguing that surely it didn’t matter if a certain potion was stirred ten times instead of eleven, no matter what the instructions said. Thande had pointed out that she might master the basics, but it was unlikely that she would ever become a full-fledged Alchemist.

  “There are two weeks until the next Advanced Charms class opens,” Lombardi said into the silence. “You will be provided with a reading list; I suggest that you spend the time reading as much as you can around the subject, because you will not be told everything in class. I will arrange the timetable for your private sessions as well.”

  “She has Martial Magic too,” Mistress Irene reminded him. “Make sure that you don’t clash the two together.”

  Emily nodded. She would have read everything she could anyway, but the reading list was a good place to start, even though the Basic Charms reading list had included several books that didn’t seem to have much–if anything–to do with Charms. Maybe they made sense later, or maybe Lombardi was testing them to see who would have the common sense to question the reading list before wasting their time reading the books.

  “I’ll see to it,” Lombardi assured her. He looked over at Emily. “You seem to lead an exciting life. I’m afraid it may be about to become more exciting.”

  Emily snorted. She’d been kidnapped from her own universe and almost sacrificed by a necromancer, rescued and sent to a school for magic children, almost killed a Princess, kidnapped by bandits and forced to escape ... and then she’d been caught up in a prank war between schoolchildren armed with magic. How could her life become more exciting?

  “Take the parchment and store it carefully,” Mistress Irene said. “If it should happen to be lost, there is a fine of ten gold coins for a replacement.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said as she pocketed the parchment. “Is there anything I should know about how well I performed in the exam?”

  “You passed?” Lombardi replied, dryly.

  Emily flushed bright red.

  “Mistress Sun will go over what you did right–and what you did wrong - later. Until then, enjoy a few days without studying Charms. Advanced Charms will push you a great deal harder.”

  Emily stood up, then paused. “Can I ask a question?” She asked, then plunged ahead anyway. “Did Alassa pass?”

  The tutors exchanged glances. They’d told Emily that her grade would depend upon Alassa’s grade–and even though they’d decided that she deserved to move ahead in classes, the original punishment might still hold. What would she do if Alassa failed again? Would she have to retake Basic Charms again and again?

  “She passed,” Lombardi said, after a long beat.

  Emily relaxed in relief.

  “We have asked her to visit the office after you so we can discuss her results, and her entry into Advanced Charms. Your assistance might have made the difference between success and failure for her.”

  Except that everyone is supposed to be able to pass Basic Charms on their first try, Emily thought sourly. If you couldn’t progress without grasping the basics, it stood to reason that you would try to grasp them as quickly as possible. Alassa hadn’t seemed to recognize that they were even there before Emily had walked her through them, as carefully as possible. But then, Alassa had definitely had a very poor tutor before attending Whitehall.

  “Do not speak to anyone as you leave the room,” Mistress Irene added. “You can talk to your friends after they have all been told their results.”

  Emily nodded, thanked them again and left the room. Three other students, including Alassa, were outside, waiting impatiently to hear the results of their exam. Emily winked at Alassa before she left the room and headed up towards her bedroom, where she opened her chest, stowed away her parchment and retrieved the list of supplies Sergeant Harkin had ordered her to prepare for the camping trip. It was surprisingly long and, in truth, she wasn’t sure how she could hope to carry all of them in a single rucksack. She’d looked into various spells t
hat should have made it easier before the Sergeant had informed the team that they weren’t allowed to use magic to make their rucksacks weightless. They were intended to carry everything under their own power.

  The door opened, revealing Aloha. “Hey,” she said. “I wanted to show you this.”

  Aloha produced a wooden box and placed it on the bed, opening it up to reveal a makeshift keyboard attached to a metal wand. When she pressed one of the keys, a glowing letter appeared above the box, causing Emily to giggle out loud. It was a very primitive word processor, powered by magic. Maybe she couldn’t remember–if she’d ever known–anything about producing a computer, but she had been able to give them the general idea behind word processors.

  “Watch,” Aloha said in some delight. She pushed several keys at once, writing out a whole word. “See? It works!”

  Emily felt an odd pang of something that she eventually recognized as homesickness. She had never really regretted leaving Earth for this magical world, even though this world had poor plumbing, a decidedly sexist attitude, medieval systems of government and a necromancer who wanted her dead because he’d bungled the spell that had summoned her in the first place. But now, looking at the weird word processor, she remembered the hours of fun she’d had on the computer back home. She’d had Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and all the other internet games that simply couldn’t exist in the magical world.

  Yet, she told herself, firmly. There didn’t seem to be any fundamental reason why high technology would not work in her new universe. The technology had simply never been developed. Given enough time, they would probably come up with computers that didn’t need mana to function, maybe sooner if Emily could give them enough pointers to start them down the right track. If ... she’d written down everything she could remember about the concept of printing presses, but she hadn’t heard back from Imaiqah’s father regarding them. The craftsman he’d hired might not be able to duplicate the printing press from Emily’s instructions.